ContentNews from the Editor | p.01
Letter from the President | p.02 News from the Editor-in-Chief of IJBM | p.04
Call for Papers | p.05 UK Society of Behavioral Medicine | p.07
Interview with Ronan O’Carroll | p.09 INSPIRE | p.13
News from Societies| p.14
ISBM International Society of Behavioral Medicine
I S S U E
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photo: p
ixelio.de / Gerd Altmann
NewsfromtheEditor
Dear ISBM members,
With this Spring‐issue of our Society’s news‐
letter, I send you warm greetings from cold
and winterly Switzerland and at the same time
wish you a successful and happy 2013!
Right in the beginning of this Newsletter‐Issue
in his letter, our President draws our attention
to the next International Conference of the
Society, ICBM, which will be held in Gronin‐
gen, NL, in 2014. He emphasizes on interna‐
tional collaboration during the preparation of
this conference and within the ISBM in gen‐
eral and, in line with this, much thought is
dedicated to this topic in this current newslet‐
ter:
1. The news about our Society’s Journal,
IJBM, include a call for papers on dissemi‐
nation and implementation of scientific re‐
sults in Behavioral Medicine – a topic
which relies heavily on international com‐
munication and cooperation.
2. During the preparation of the ICBM the lo‐
cal organizing team in Groningen, NL, will
be working hand‐in‐hand with the program
chair from Scotland, Ronan O’Carroll, for‐
mer president of the UK Society of Behav‐
ioural Medicine (UKSBM).
3. This can be seen as another sign of col‐
laboration and in this Newsletter issue
these international contacts lead us to the
portrait of UKSBM (see p.6) and to the in‐
terview with Ronan O’Carroll (p. 8).
4. In the UKSBM portrait, Paul Aveyard,
president of the UKSBM explicitly invites
our international ISBM members to the
yearly conferences in Britain and in the in‐
terview Ronan describes how his career
has been shaped by international contacts
and collaboration.
5. So, in line with this overall theme, and in a
collaborative effort both between socie‐
ties and nations, there will be an ISBM
Board meeting and an INSPIRE network
meeting, both planned at the upcoming
SBM‐Conference in San Francisco, USA,
this Spring (see INSPIRE and News from
the Member Societies).
To summarize and in terms of collaboration
we are facing a busy year and I, personally,
look forward to be in contact with many of
you from around the world.
Beate Ditzen Newsletter Editor
Postal address:
ISBM – Communication Chair
Gutenbergstr. 18
D‐35032 M
arburg
Copyright by ISBM
Publisher: ISBM ‐ In
ternational Society of Beh
avioral M
edicine
Editor: Beate Ditzen
Contributing Authors: Joost Dekker, Christina Lee, Paul A
veyard, R
onan
O’Carroll, Carina Chan.
Layo
ut: Andreas W
enger
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Letter from the presiden
t LetterfromthepresidentDear all,
ISBM is a network organization. The members
of ISBM are independent organizations, which
share a common interest in behavioral medi‐
cine. ISBM member societies function inde‐
pendently, pursuing scientific or professional
goals in the field of behavioral medicine. ISBM
aims to encourage and coordinate communi‐
cation and interaction among member socie‐
ties, scientists and professionals in the field of
behavioral medicine. Another major aim of
ISBM is to maintain liaison with related scien‐
tific and professional organizations.
How can ISBM do this? We have our very suc‐
cessful ICBM conference, which is a major
platform for exchange of information and for
building scientific and professional liaisons.
These conferences have been very successful.
At the same time, I believe that we can fur‐
ther develop our conference. I have contacted
organizations in the field and proposed to
nominate a (co‐)chair of one of the ICBM con‐
gress tracks. All organizations have accepted
to do this. The Scientific Program Committee
now needs to approve the following nomina‐
tions.
The International Commission on Occupa‐
tional Health (ICOH) nominated the chair
of the track Work‐related health.
The American Psychological Association –
Division 38 Health Psychology (APA Div 38
Health Psychology) nominated the co‐chair
of the track Cancer.
The International Network for Brief Inter‐
ventions for Alcohol and other Drugs (INE‐
BRIA) nominated the co‐chair of the track
Addictive Behavior.
The European League Against Rheuma‐
tism, Standing Committee of Health Pro‐
fessionals in Rheumatology (EULAR HP)
nominated the co‐chair of the track Pain,
musculoskeletal and neurological disor‐
ders.
I expect that European Society for Cardiol‐
ogy (ESC) will soon nominate the co‐chair
of the track Cardiovascular disease.
I expect that collaboration in the context of
ICBM will facilitate communication and inter‐
action with members of these organizations. I
expect that the quality of our conference will
be further enhanced by strong collaboration
with these scientific organizations. Further‐
more, I hope that collaboration in the context
of ICBM will be the starting point for other
modes of collaboration with these organiza‐
tions (e.g. on guidelines).
I want to encourage all our members, both
societies and individual members, to use
ICBM 2014 in Groningen, the Netherlands to
further develop international collaboration. In
my contacts with member societies, I have no‐
ticed a strong need for international collabo‐
ration. I have noticed that colleagues tend to
be pleased with an invitation for a talk on po‐
tential collaboration. This can be at the level
of a joint symposium, at the level of a visit, at
the level of a common publication or project,
at the level of a regional network, at the level
of a joint conference, or still another level.
Best wishes to all of you,
Joost Dekker President of ISBM
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Board M
embers 2012‐2014 BoardMembers
2012‐2014
Joost Dekker President, 2012‐2014 VU University Medical Center, The Netherlands [email protected]
Norito Kawakami Past President University of Tokyo, Japan
[email protected]‐tokyo.ac.jp
Adrienne Stauder President Elect Semmelweis University Budapest, Hungary [email protected]
Petra Lindfors Treasurer Stockholm University, Sweden [email protected]
Frank J. Penedo Secretary University of Miami, FL, USA [email protected]
Anne H. Berman Education and Training Committee Karolinska Institutete, Sweden [email protected]
Urs M. Nater Communications Committee University of Marburg, Germany nater@uni‐marburg.de
Shin Fukudo Finance Committee Tohoku University, Japan [email protected]
Paula Repetto International Collaborative Studies Committee Catholic University of Chile [email protected]
Christina Lee International Journal of Behavioral Medicine University of Queensland, Australia [email protected]
Yuji Sakano Membership Committee Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, Japan sakano@hoku‐iryo‐u.ac.jp
Kasisomayajula Vishwanath Organizational Liaison Committee Harvard School of Public Health, USA [email protected]
Ronan O´Carroll ICBM Scientific Program Committee University of Stirling, GB [email protected]
Neil Schneiderman Strategic Planning Committee University of Miami, FL, USA [email protected]
Beate Ditzen Newsletter Editor University of Zurich, Switzerland [email protected]
Carina Chan INSPIRE Monash University, Australia [email protected]
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New
s from the Ed
itor‐in‐Chief of IJBM
New
s from the Ed
itor‐in‐Chief of IJBM
New
s from the Ed
itor‐in‐Chief of IJBM NewsfromtheEditor‐in‐
ChiefofIJBM
The International Journal
of Behavioral Medicine is
going from strength to
strength. As I reported in
the previous newsletter,
our Impact Factor has
jumped to 2.625. Partly as
a result of this, the editorial team is coping
with substantial growth in both number and
quality of submissions, as well as some very
interesting opportunities for special issues
and special publications.
Submission numbers in 2012 were the highest
ever, with a total of 217 submissions in the
year (compared with 185 in 2011, and 142 in
2010). And it looks as if 2013 will be even big‐
ger. This is an excellent outcome for the Jour‐
nal and the Society, suggesting that our reach
and influence is steadily increasing. An un‐
wanted consequence of more, and higher
quality, submissions is a growing backlog of
papers that have been accepted but not yet
published. Accepted papers are available on
OnlineFirst within a couple of weeks of ac‐
ceptance, but the wait for hard‐copy publica‐
tion is continuing to grow.
Following discussion with Janice Stern, our
Senior Editor at Springer, in mid 2012 we in‐
creased page length per issue from 100 to
160, but this is not sufficient. Therefore, we
will switch to 6 issues per year from 2014. This
should enable us to continue to accept papers
that are methodologically sound, well written,
compelling, and original, from around the
world, while reducing the wait for hard‐copy
publication to no more than 6 months.
It also gives us room to continue our tradition
of exciting and high‐quality Special Issues and
Special Series. We have several of these in
process at the moment. A series on Function‐
al Somatic Syndromes, guest edited by Pro‐
fessor Urs Nater, is almost ready for publica‐
tion and will appear in the second issue for
2013. A special issue on Behavioral Medicine
in China, guest edited by Joost Dekker, Bo Bai,
Brian Oldenburg, Chengxuan Qiu, and Xuefeng
Zhong, and another on Research to Reality:
The Science of Dissemination and Implemen‐
tation in Behavioral Medicine, guest edited
by Carina Chan, Brian Oldenburg, and Vish
Viswanath, are both currently open for sub‐
missions. And of course we continue to wel‐
come submissions on any aspect of behavioral
medicine, at any time.
Editor’s Choice
The European Guidelines on Cardiovascular
Disease Prevention in Clinical Practice were
published in Issue 4 2012, jointly with the Eu‐
ropean Heart Journal. This comprehensive
and widely relevant document was developed
by a large team of experts from across Eu‐
rope, including a number of senior members
of the International Society for Behavioral
Medicine. It has leapt to the top of our "most
downloaded" list with a remarkable total of
1,237 downloads. You can see our most
downloaded articles and get them for free at
http://www.springer.com/medicine/journal/12529
‐ just click on ‘Most Downloaded Articles’ and
follow the links.
Christina Lee Editor IJBM
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Call for Papers
IJBM Call for Papers CallforPapers
Research to Reality: The Science of Dis‐
semination and Implementation in Be‐
havioral Medicine
Public health programs are only effective if
they are widely disseminated and imple‐
mented. The different values and perspectives
of practitioners, program implementers, pol‐
icy makers and researchers may be a signifi‐
cant barrier to this. Practitioners often find
generic evidence‐based interventions difficult
to implement in community settings, espe‐
cially when there is limited information about
how to adapt programs to the local context.
Furthermore, public health decision makers
and program implementers are often reluc‐
tant to consider new interventions when ef‐
fectiveness has not been demonstrated in
their particular setting or country. In contrast,
researchers place greater emphasis on inter‐
nal validity than on generalizability and exter‐
nal validity.
“Dissemination” refers to the flow of evi‐
dence‐based but customised information or
intervention to well‐defined target audiences.
“Implementation” refers to the adoption and
integration of evidence‐based health inter‐
ventions into specific settings. “Translation”
refers to applying or adapting research find‐
ings or evidence to different community or
population settings. Effective dissemination,
implementation and translation of public
health and behavioral medicine interventions
require the triangulation of evidence from
formal trials with case studies, expert opinion,
network analysis, and systems thinking, as
well as assessment of the local context. As a
follow‐up to a highly successful satellite forum
on dissemination and implementation at the
11th International Congress of Behavioral
Medicine, Budapest, August 2012, the Inter‐
national Journal of Behavioral Medicine is is‐
suing an international call for papers to ad‐
dress issues pertaining to dissemination, im‐
plementation and translation in behavioral
medicine. Submissions are due June 1, 2013.
Research Questions: We are particularly in‐
terested in papers that address, but are not
limited to, these topics:
What theoretical models and approaches
are relevant to understanding and improv‐
ing dissemination, implementation and
translation in Behavioral Medicine? What
evidence demonstrates the effectiveness
of these models and approaches?
What methods and strategies are being
used in dissemination and implementation
studies in behavioral medicine?
How can we maximize the impact of be‐
havioral medicine evidence on public
health policy and practice?
We will consider papers that report original
research, conceptual or theoretical papers,
meta‐analyses, systematic reviews, and pa‐
pers that highlight innovative methodologies.
Papers from studies conducted in both devel‐
oped and developing countries are welcome.
Instructions: Please submit your manuscript
by June 1, 2013 following the standard re‐
quirements for IJBM articles and are subject
to standard editorial and peer review See
http://www.springer.com/medicine/journal/12529
Please address any questions regarding this
special issue to the Guest Editors:
Dr. Carina Chan: [email protected]. Brian Oldenburg: [email protected] Dr. Vish Viswanath: [email protected]
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ThedevelopmentoftheUKSocietyofBehavioralMedicine
Biology, Behaviour, and Environment
The UKSBM began life under a decade ago
and is growing in numbers and influence. The
main focus of the Society is our annual scien‐
tific meeting, which tours the country each
year. Originally, a one‐day meeting, the meet‐
ing has grown to a very packed two‐day event.
The conference is enormously popular with its
delegates, which give rave reviews of the con‐
tent, but sometimes wish for time to sit down
and for less packed days. It seems likely that
the three‐day conference is on the horizon for
the Society.
The conference itself attracts over 250 dele‐
gates, which is more than the number of
members. We plan changes to try to ensure
that we attract and engage scientists inter‐
ested enough in our society to come to the
meetings and engage them in membership
and the broader work of the Society. We have
a growing membership and the Society has
used its members to respond to consultations
on government policies, or guidelines issued
by the National Institute for Clinical Excel‐
lence, for example.
The Society has also lobbied for a chief social
scientist to sit alongside the other chief scien‐
tific advisors to the Government and it seems
possible that this post may indeed be created.
The success of the conference and the growth
in the membership has meant we have a
growing bank balance, but harassed officers.
Our committee are all volunteers and keeping
track of the membership, updating the web‐
site, our Twitter accounts, our Facebook page,
and organising responses to consultations is
all done on top of busy day jobs. Our need for
volunteer committee members will continue,
but we are looking to support those members,
perhaps by employing someone who can lead
the Society’s response to consultations and
get and collate views and evidence from our
members in ways that do not require them
too much extra work.
New
s from the Ed
itor‐in‐Chief of IJBM
The development of the UK Society of Beh
avioral M
edicine
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The challenge of success is that the system
that has supported the Society so well up to
now may need to change to support the con‐
tinued growth of our Society.
One key priority for the Society is to grow a
future generation of UKSBM researchers. To
that end, we have a thriving early career net‐
work. For the past few years the early career
network has met to discuss topics of interest.
At the last conference, we had journal editors
create a panel and the network submitted
questions on how to get published. It was
consoling to hear that even experienced re‐
searchers and editors find it just as hard to get
published sometimes as the rest of us. The
network is organising training events during
the year to create a sense of unity for re‐
searchers and to support each other in their
work.
The strength of the Society is its multidiscipli‐
narity, which is something to which the Soci‐
ety is strongly committed. We have scientists
from a wide range of backgrounds, reflecting
the emphasis on biology, behaviour, and envi‐
ronment, which is the strapline of our Society.
The range of disciplines engaged with our So‐
ciety is large, and our task for the future is to
reach out to and engage more readily with
professions who use behavioural medicine in
their daily lives, but are unaware of the scien‐
tific basis of their work and the society that
supports and promotes that. We have had
outreach events at academic conferences
aimed at clinician researchers and we con‐
tinue to use informal networking opportuni‐
ties to reach out to influence clinical practice,
social policy, and research in these areas. We
are looking forward to exciting times ahead
and would welcome members of others in the
ISBM family to our conference.
Paul Aveyard President of UKSBM
The development of the UK Society of Beh
avioral M
edicine
The development of the UK Society of Beh
avioral M
edicine
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InterviewwithRonanO’Carroll
Q1. When we look at your background, from
the beginning the combination of biology and
psychology becomes evident. Can you tell us
about your mentors and about which situa‐
tions have shaped your research interests?
A1. I went to University in
Edinburgh in 1975 to
study Biology because; (a)
I wanted to avoid getting
a job and (b) Biology was
one of the few subjects I
was interested in at
school. Initially I found
studying biochemistry, zoology and physiology
pretty difficult and looked for a “soft” option
to complete my courses, and chose psychol‐
ogy as I assumed it would be about sex and
dreams. I enjoyed it and became interested in
Clinical Psychology. In the late 1970’s, in the
final (4th) year as an undergraduate studying
Psychology, students sometimes had 1:1 tuto‐
rials with staff. I was lucky enough to have a
series of 1:1 tutorials with Ralph McGuire
(who ran the Clinical Psychology training pro‐
gramme in Edinburgh for many years) and he
really inspired me to become a Clinical Psy‐
chologist. Later in life, in 1990 Ralph encour‐
aged me to join him doing some clinical ses‐
sions in general medicine, in the Dept. of Psy‐
chological Medicine in Edinburgh Royal Infir‐
mary. I accepted his invitation and am still do‐
ing these every Tuesday afternoon, 23 years
later.
In 1980 the competition to obtain a place on a
Clinical Psychology programme was (and still
is) very high in the UK, so I decided to try and
do a PhD in order to increase my chances of
getting a place on a Clinical Psychology train‐
ing scheme. I applied for a PhD studentship in
the MRC Brain Metabolism Unit in Edinburgh,
entitled “The behavioural effects of andro‐
gens in men” under the supervision of John
Bancroft. He later became Director of the
Kinsey Institute in the US and was a brilliant
supervisor and taught me the importance of
rigorous scientific methodology. We con‐
ducted a number of placebo‐controlled stud‐
ies investigating the effects of testosterone on
mood, sexuality and aggression in men. This
was my first exposure to behavioural medi‐
cine and I became hooked. I was fortunate
enough to be awarded the Kinsey Institute in‐
ternational PhD dissertation prize in 1984.
This came with a $1,000 prize, which I recall
was particularly welcome at the time, as my
wife and I desperately needed to buy a bath
to replace a shower as we had just had our
first baby.
The next major influential figures were Marie
and Derek Johnston. I had begun to carry out
more research in the area of psychology in a
general medical setting and I joined them at
the University of St Andrews in 1999. They
really introduced me to Health Psychology
and pointed out that a lot of my work had
been in the domain of Health Psychology, I
just hadn’t been aware of it! I learned a lot
from both of them, and continue to do so.
Marie in particular emphasised the limitations
of cross‐sectional designs relying on self‐
reports, and the need for intervention studies
and the importance of measuring actual be‐
havior. She encouraged me to join ISBM and
attend ICBM meetings as she felt I would find
both rewarding. Annoyingly, as usual she was
correct. So the main influences on my career
to date have been a clinical psychologist, a
psychiatrist and two health psychologists.
Interview with Ronan
O’Carroll
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Q2. How did you move from your early re‐
search on androgens to your current research
interests?
A2. I am afraid I am a really bad example as to
how to plan a career, as I have never had a
well thought out plan. Rather, I have drifted
into research areas that have caught my at‐
tention at the time. This has often been the
result of clinicians approaching me with ques‐
tions such as “Why do people not attend acci‐
dent and emergency as soon as possible after
a heart attack?” or “Are people likely to suffer
significant cognitive impairment following re‐
suscitation after a cardiac arrest?” I didn't
know the answers to these types of questions,
but set up research projects to try and answer
them. More recently, my Dad suffered a mild
stroke and I noticed that his adherence to his
secondary preventative medication was poor.
This stimulated me to start a research pro‐
gramme on medication adherence. So far, I
have been very fortunate in that everywhere I
have worked I have had the freedom and
flexibility to move into new behavioural medi‐
cine research areas quite easily.
Q3. Where there important turning points in
your career, which have influenced or
changed your work philosophy?
A3. I think a real turning point was doing my
PhD with John Bancroft. At that time I was
simply planning to use a PhD as a qualification
to increase my chances of obtaining a training
place as a Clinical Psychologist. My intention
was to then spend the rest of my career as a
practicing Clinical Psychologist working in
adult mental health in the UK National Health
Service. However, I really enjoyed the behav‐
ioural medicine research process in my PhD.
After working as a full‐time Clinical Psycholo‐
gist for a couple of years, I realised I wanted
to return to research and that an academic
post suited me better. I particularly enjoy the
variety of research, teaching, supervision and
some clinical work.
Q4. Where do you see your research going
over the next 5 to 10 years? What would you
like to accomplish?
A4. I have become more interested in the role
that emotions play in guiding our health re‐
lated behaviours, i.e. the role that “feelings”
rather than “facts” play, and am keen to con‐
duct evaluations of large scale projects that
try and take emotions into account when try‐
ing to change behavior. For example, we are
currently running a large trial aimed at in‐
creasing the uptake of colorectal cancer
screening in Scotland. In Scotland every 2
years all people over the age of 50 years are
posted a test‐kit to return a stool sample by
post for the detection of traces of blood in the
sample. This programme is very effective in
the early detection of colorectal cancer and
saves many lives. Unfortunately the test‐kit
return rates are low, particularly from men
and people living in areas of social depriva‐
tion. We are investigating the role that emo‐
tions such as disgust play in the decision not
to return a test kit.
Interview with Ronan
O’Carroll
At the UKSBM‐Meeting, Stirling, 2011
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I am also interested in why 90% of the UK
general population say they support the idea
of organ donation, yet only 31% have signed
on the UK organ donor register. My team are
investigating emotional barriers to organ do‐
nor registration and evaluating whether these
barriers can be overcome.
I also plan doing more work in the area of in‐
creasing adherence to medication in long
term conditions. Our work to date has fo‐
cused on two main themes (a) tackling non‐
intentional non‐adherence by trying to make
medication‐taking become an automatic
habit, thus removing the load on prospective
memory and (b) tackling intentional non‐
adherence by eliciting patient’s beliefs about
their medicines to see if any erroneous beliefs
can be modified. I find Leventhal’s common‐
sense self‐regulatory model very helpful in in‐
forming this work, i.e. that each person has a
set of mental representations that they hold
about their illness and its treatment (cause,
timeline, controllability etc.). With stroke pa‐
tients we found that many people have a lot
of concerns about their medication that leads
them to decide not to take them (e.g. they be‐
lieve they have been prescribed too many tab‐
lets, that this is not “natural”, may be harmful
etc.). Many of these patients have never dis‐
cussed these concerns with their doctor, who
may be completely unaware that the patients
have these beliefs and are not taking their
tablets as a result.
I am very glad that I have continued to see pa‐
tients and do a clinical session in a general
hospital every week and I plan to continue do‐
ing so. I find this really helps provide ground‐
ing and reality‐testing for our “ivory tower”
theories from academic research. For exam‐
ple, following Leventhal’s self‐regulatory
model, I am impressed how useful it is to rou‐
tinely ask patients who are referred to me
what they think about their condition and its
treatment (i.e. eliciting their idiosyncratic ill‐
ness and treatment beliefs). Repeatedly it
emerges that they hold views that differ
markedly from their clinicians, and this can
help explain why they may not be adhering or
coping well with their condition.
Q5. In which direction would you like the field
of behavioral medicine research and clinic in
general to develop over the coming years?
Where do you see the challenges in our field?
A5. I think we really need to demonstrate that
behavioural medicine research can lead to
lasting health behavior change at a population
level. It is becoming increasingly accepted that
behavior is key to many preventable condi‐
tions via smoking, obesity, sedentary behav‐
ior, diet and alcohol. Our challenge is to dem‐
onstrate to policy makers that we can make a
significant and lasting change to health behav‐
iours that leads to improved health outcomes.
Q6. For the worldwide readership of the ISBM
Newsletter, impressions of the country and of
the specific research environment of the in‐
terviewees are of particular interest. Do you
see any specific and important points about
doing behavioral medicine research in Scot‐
land, UK?
A6. Scotland’s health is pretty poor. For ex‐
ample, in the Calton area of Glasgow the life
expectancy for a man is 54 years and that is a
disgrace. As a nation we tend to lead un‐
healthy lifestyles. In a recent survey the 5 be‐
haviours (smoking, drinking too much alcohol,
poor diet, physical inactivity and obesity) that
commonly lead to ill health were assessed in a
Interview with Ronan
O’Carroll
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community survey of Scottish adults. 97% of
Scottish adults endorsed at least one of these,
55% had 3 or more and 20% had 4 or 5. How‐
ever, the Scottish Government recognizes that
health behavior change is key and are suppor‐
tive of behavioural medicine research in this
area. One advantage of working in a relatively
small country is that it is relatively easy to get
to know like‐minded researchers and establish
collaborative multidisciplinary research rela‐
tionships. I also think that Scotland does some
things really well e.g. introducing a public
smoking ban, and of course, Scots invented
and developed so many things that make the
world a better place e.g. beta blockers, peni‐
cillin, chloroform, television, the telephone
etc. To quote Winston Churchill: “Of all the
small nations of this earth, perhaps only the
ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their con‐
tribution to mankind”. Personally, I think the
ancient Greeks were pretty good, but I’m not
sure they surpass the Scots.
Q7. You are extremely productive in your ca‐
reer and it is hard to imagine that you have
any time left outside your lab. What do you
like to do for fun?
A7. I don't agree that I am particularly produc‐
tive, and I am sure my employers would like
me to do more! However, I firmly believe that
one should try and have a healthy work/life
balance. I certainly don't work all the time and
believe that having a laugh on a regular basis
is crucial. I very much enjoy playing and
watching sport. I hold a firmly held convic‐
tion/delusion that I was quite a good soccer
player, and I still play, though my playing style
now is largely that of an immobile, complain‐
ing striker. I enjoy tennis and squash but ten‐
nis elbow is limiting that of late. Our 3 chil‐
dren have now grown up and left home (no
psychologists among them) and we have re‐
placed them with 2 black Labrador brothers,
Paddy and Finn and they are great fun (now
that Finn has stopped destroying our house)
and they keep us busy. I find walking the dogs
a very good
way to un‐
wind. I also
like socializ‐
ing, watch‐
ing movies
and travel‐
ling.
Q8. And, finally, again for our international
readership: If you had to leave Scotland and
move to a different country; where would you
like to live (and perhaps to do research)?
A8. We did move to Canada and lived there
for 2.5 years in the late 1980’s. I really en‐
joyed our time there and it was great to ex‐
perience life in a different country. I worked
at Memorial University in St John’s and helped
run their Clinical Psychology programme.
Since then I have occasionally considered
working abroad (particularly during Scottish
winters), but for family and work reasons we
have remained in Scotland and I don't have
any regrets. I like the Scottish sense of hu‐
mour, and I think we evolved this to cope with
our weather.
Thank you very much for your time!
Beate Ditzen
Interview with Ronan
O’Carroll
Interview with Ronan
O’Carroll
Ronan and Phineas Gage
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INSPIRE’supdate
To kick start 2013’s plan to engage more early
career researchers, INSPIRE will be present at
the upcoming annual meeting of the Society
of Behavioral Medicine in San Francisco. We
will introduce INSPIRE at the special interest
group meeting as well as the students meet‐
and‐greet. We look forward to meeting and
recruiting interested members from North
America.
As an ongoing development and planning for
INSPIRE, we would like to make a call to all
student and early career researchers to join
INSPIRE. If you are within 5 years from your
most recent graduation, please do join the
INSPIRE community. Visit our new website
(http://isbminspire.com/) and keep up with
what is happening! INSPIRE is a network cre‐
ated for you so please let us know how we
can better support your research and career
development in the field of behavioural medi‐
cine!
I would also like to draw your attention to an
international call for papers for a special issue
in the International Journal of Behavioral
Medicine, “Research to Reality: The Science
of Dissemination and Implementation in Be‐
havioral Medicine”. Early career researchers
are strongly encouraged to submit papers to
this special issue should your work is related
to dissemination and implementation re‐
search. Close for submission is 1 June 2013.
Please see attached Call for Papers on page 5.
Wish you all the best in 2013.
Carina Chan, PhD INSPIRE Chair
INSPIRE ‐ International Network for Supporting Promising Individual Researchers in their Early career
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NewsfromtheSocieties
71st Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society (APS)
March 13 – 16, 2013
Miami Florida (USA)
American Psychosomatic Society
http://www.psychosomatic.org/AnMeeting/current.cfm
34th Annual Meeting of the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM)
March 20 – 23, 2013
San Francisco (USA)
Society of Behavioral Medicine
http://www.sbm.org/meetings/2013
14th Congress of the German Society for Behavioral Medicine (DGVM)
September 26 – 28, 2013
Prien am Chiemsee (Germany)
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Verhaltensmedizin und Verhaltensmodifikation (DGVM)
http://www.dgvm‐kongress‐2013.de/cms/home
9th Annual Scientific Meeting of the UK Society for Behavioral Medicine (UKSBM)
December 9 – 10, 2013
Oxford (UK)
The UK Society for Behavioral Medicine (UKSBM)
http://uksbm.org.uk/?page_id=2288
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